How to Say I Love You
Is it hard to say, “I love you” to the One who loves you most?
For me, it is.
I felt prompted recently to take up a more disciplined approach to prayer, primarily for the sake of the many I have in my heart to care for. Discipline requires structure. Structure can easily decay into box-checking. Box-checking tends to reduce my relationship to a business transaction. I see a slippery slope here. Time to strap on some crampons or some mud chains!
What does this have to do with saying “I love You” to God?
The structure I am going with is loosely based on the hours of prayer kept by millions of believers over millennia. The plan includes beginning the day with relational prayers: You and me, God, our friendship, my worship of you, my need of You. So the first thing is, “I love You, LORD.”
I can’t bring myself to say it.
We are commanded to love the LORD with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” It’s not like this is a foreign concept! It’s not like I object to loving God! My whole life has been, and is given, to loving Him and helping others to experience His love and love Him in return. Then, why is it so hard to speak those words?
I can sing them… if someone else has written the words. I have written dozens of songs expressing worship and intimate conversations with Jesus, but none of them say to Him, “I love You.”
I can’t find anywhere that we are commanded to say the words, but I am not looking for justification of my difficulty. I just want to know why this is a struggle.
Currently, I have two theories:
One. Saying it doesn’t make it true. Love is a verb, and so is best communicated with actions. All the places where scripture talks about loving God, it is in the context of deeds done, sacrifices made, worship executed, life-styles adopted or adjusted. That is even true of places where He says He loves us! I want to be among those whose love for God is visible by my life.
OR…
Two, I am so self-righteous that I will not say it lest I be found wanting in the content thereof.
One of the places where we hear God’s angst is in Isaiah 29: “this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.” And then there’s Jesus’ persistent questioning of Peter on the shore of Galilee: “Do you agapos me? Do you love me in the sacrificial, always-and-only-looking-to-benefit-the-one-loved way I love you?” Peter’s answer: “You know I have the tender feelings toward, and personal attachment to, you that a close friend would have.”
Yeah, I am a little afraid that tender feelings are all that I will be found with. So I don’t want to risk saying it and being caught in a lie.
Either of these is a distinct possibility. Maybe both at the same time!
Either way, I want both my life and my words to show that Jesus is the most thoroughly, saturatedly (I think I just invented a word.) important thing about me. He is my hope and reason for living! That’s why I am
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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